The Rising Tide

THE RISING TIDE

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold toward the east. Ezekiel 47:1

A few years ago, when I was living in Jackson, Mississippi, a friend gave me a book by John Barry, titled Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. The book records the devastating and revolutionary effect the Mississippi flood of 1927 had on not just the Old South but the nation as well.

First, it crushed once and for all the old Delta plantation society. Second, it altered the balance of economic and political power in the capital city of the Mississippi, New Orleans. Third, it led to the mass exodus of almost a million African Americans to the West and North. Fourth, it reshaped the Democratic Party and ushered in the welfare state approach to racial relations. Finally, it taught America one costly lesson: The mighty Mississippi could never be controlled but, at best, channeled.

In Ezekiel 47, the prophet receives yet another vision from God. Out from under the altar of the heavenly temple, there issues forth a trickling stream of clear, fresh water. As Ezekiel wades in it, this trickle becomes a brook, then a stream, then a canal, and finally a river so deep and broad that it could not be forded by man. Along its banks were trees whose fruit never falls nor leaves ever wither (See Revelation 22:1-5). This river is full of fish and fishermen. And wherever the river flows, two things happen: Life springs forth and what is polluted becomes crystal clear.

Here is another picture of revival and great awakening, much like that of Ezekiel 34:25-31 or 37:1-14. David J. Reimer comments in the footnotes of the English Standard Version Study Bible: “This aspect of the vision coheres with 34:25-31 in affirming that renewal is not just moral and does not just come to people but affects the entire natural world” (p. 1576).

What few people realize is how deep, how powerful and how swift the Mississippi River is at the bottom of its channel. The “Ole Black Water” seems to lazily make its way downstream. As the Broadway song says, “Ole Man River, he just keeps rolling along.” Don’t be fooled. At the bottom of the Mississippi River, no man can stand and very few diving vessels can go. The River moves almost one million cubic feet of silt per second! In the 1927 flood, it pushed 3 million cubic feet of earth along, per second, by means of a 100-foot wall of water. This Rising Tide shows forth the awesome power of its Creator and Guide.

So does the Gospel stream of mission: It appears at the surface to lope along slowly. But where no man can go and no instrument may measure, it carves deep into people groups, cultures, nations and the flow of world history. The rising tide of the Spirit of God is changing the world before our very eyes.

Every so often it overflows its banks––the “normal” way the Spirit chooses to work––and breaks out in a divine flood of grace and a spiritual wall of power. It sweeps everything before it. We call this Revival. No one can manufacture it. No method of man can control it. No time can predict it. But when the tide rises and the waters of grace flow over our normal limits, amazing things happen. The world itself is changed!

PRAYING FOR THE PCA

CEP: Please pray for the youth ministry volunteers around the country. They are the backbone of youth ministry and often work without recognition (if you have ever taught Jr. Boys Sunday School then you know what I mean). Also include the hundreds of PCA churches without paid youth staff, and the men and women who are leading the Sunday School programs, youth groups, discipleship groups, retreats and summer trips on a volunteer basis.

CC: Please pray that the Admissions Office staff will accurately and effectively portray the distinctiveness of a Covenant education to prospective students and their parents.

MNA: Please pray for our PCA Military personnel and the chaplains who minister to them. Pray also for the military families who are making a great sacrifice for our freedom, particularly with the multiple extended deployments.

PCAF: Pray that the PCAF brochures we have distributed to all PCA churches will be effective in communicating to the church members our services and ministry.

RH: Pray for Steve Cobb as he assumes additional responsibility for the day-to-day operations of Ridge Haven during the Executive Director Search process.

THE DAY OF THE LORD